Preschools` Importance Not Certain

October 5, 1986|By SID KIRCHHEIMER, Staff Writer

Children with some kind of day care or preschool background tend to adjust to kindergarten faster and perform better than those who don`t.

``Those from preschool have a definite advantage in the early grades,`` says Nancy Karweit, who is doing research for the U.S. Department of Education. ``They know things. They are used to working situations and getting along with others. They even score an average of 12 points higher on IQ tests. But things tend to even out by third grade, and those without preschool catch up to them.``

Still, it`s a significant three years.

``The grades kindergarten through third are very critical, they help determine what kind of student the child will be in later grades,`` she adds. ``Those with preschool liked school more and felt smarter. Those without it, since they hadn`t learned these things, felt dumb and were more turned off to school.``

What researchers are trying to determine now is if preschool can do more harm than good, especially with the trend toward more academic kindergartens.

``What we`re seeing is the pressure from kindergarten going down to the 4- year-olds in preschool.``

Karweit says one study -- the first done and released several months ago after 12 years of research -- found that a group of youths placed in an academic preschool substantially raised their IQs and did better academically than two other preschool classes that stressed socialization skills. But at age 15, they had an alarming pregnancy rate and had participated in twice as many delinquent acts as the two other groups. Karweit says no definite conclusion can be made yet.

Others had their doubts about how much preparation is obtained from preschool.

``Children, many from preschool, are coming into kindergarten today sounding more prepared,`` says Joanne Chancy, an early education supervisor for the Florida Deparment of Education. ``They hear the language but they can fool you. They may have the vocabulary, they don`t have the depth of concept. This is one reason why many schools do so much testing in kindergarten.``

The state Department of Education acts as a monitoring agent to schools but does not provide a state-mandated curriculum. That move, Chancy adds, is under consideration.

Betty Bell, director of elementary education for Palm Beach County Schools, says: ``My experience has found that with the students who do better, it`s not how much preschool they had, it`s how much their parents read to them. The child whose parents read to them in the early years tend to do better in school.``